Main menu

The greatest WordPress.com site in all the land!

361MC: – Rat Bastard – Bad Mouth Men Shoot

The initial lead up to the shoot for Rat Bastard by Bad Mouth Men was much smoother and far less nerve-wracking than it was for the day of Little Rag Doll by Six Broken Sticks. As I had already filmed one music video before and was aware of the process of filming and necessity for multiple takes, myself and the team were a lot more confident in both our filming ability and knowledge of what was required. I had also prepped my team beforehand and sent them the music videos I had based my research on in order for everyone on the day of the shoot to all be on the same page and unite under one consistent vision. In order to emulate the visual pace and camera movements of 1970s punk videos, I knew that unlike Little Rag Doll I wanted the entire video to be shot from cameras on shoulder mounts and to film in close up as we walk around the performance room and offer shots.

Upon arriving at the practice room, I was a little dismayed to find that the room was incredibly small and already had a lot of junk in their without all of the instruments or kit set up. When the kit and lights had been set up, it was very challenging to move around the space. Although this wasn’t ideal filming conditions, I thought that this might help contribute to how we were approaching the shoot and the necessity to film everything close and constrained. This was a great opportunity for us once again to work under a limitation and test out skills to offer shots around an enclosed area. All three of us had to make sure not to stray into each other’s view of the cameras but also move the camera around enough to generate the needed sense of momentum and variety in angles. This was incredibly challenging and put our camera skills to the test but I believe we managed to accomplish some varied shots that will look great once they are edited to the correct pace of the song.

At first, the song itself also posed another momentary limitation to us as it was the first time any of us had heard it. This made the first few run-throughs of the song very challenging as we had to anticipate in what direction the song was leading and also concentrate on how we thought each member of the band would act at each new cadence of the song. Unlike Little Rag Doll where we had a clear time stamped plan of shots which accompanied the song, Rat Bastard was completely improvised for all of us, with our only point of reference being what we had seen from the band’s collection of live videos on their Youtube page. Once we had recorded the song a number of times, we knew where each cue of the song was and so the filming process became a lot easier. This taught us the important skill of improvisation and reactionary filming which is a key skill to have as a media producer as it allows you to be self-reliant and improves your ability to take your own initiative.

Overall, the shoot went very well and built upon my own personal development in the area of directing (a position I was a lot more comfortable in this time around) and vastly improved my approach to camera operating. It has taught me however that for the next music video I should really visit the location and have a thorough knowledge of the song before the day of filming as, although it taught me some important skills, it means that the whole process of filming can go much smoother and you are able to plan ahead in order to both utilise the space on offer as well as direct more confidently and coherently when you can pinpoint exact points of the song to begin filming from.